


Maybe This Time

by threewalls



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Cultural Differences, Gen, Isolation, Male Friendship, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 11:04:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wu Fan didn't have a friend like Chanyeol in Canada.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe This Time

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Maayacola. Written for the "isolation" square for h/c bingo.

It was easier learning English in some ways than Korean, because Wu Fan never fell into the gap between learning the other language and stumbling over vowels and consonants, his tongue pushing forward more familiar words that sounded so close and yet were entirely wrong-- here. There's a big difference between the way his dictionary and workbooks explain the language and how everyone around Wu Fan actually speaks.

Wu Fan can get through buying groceries or an import CD without embarrassing himself too much. He can follow instructions, learns to recognise what "no, no, not like that" sounds like in Korean before he learns what the individual words mean. He knows how and when to bow, when to pick up the cheque or let it be picked up for him, knows when to answer to _dongsaeng_ instead of Kris or Kevin or Li Jiaheng. 

Most of Wu Fan's friends here are Chinese, and most of them are the ones who speak enough English to speak whichever dialect their mother speaks imperfectly, too. He nods when Yixing gets homesick for real _niangao_ , even if his mother makes them differently, but it's Henry talking about chocolate glazed Timbits that makes Wu Fan's mouth really water. He knows some of the Korean trainees-- he learns quickest which ones don't like you forgetting their names-- but he makes it through three years of training at SM without making a friend among them.

| ("You rap and you're tall," the boy says when he meets Wu Fan. "I like people like that.")  
---|---  
  
It wouldn't fly in Vancouver, where offering to scrub some other guy's back would have got Wu Fan beaten up in the showers, at least until he hit that growth spurt at fifteen. But, as Amber pointed out when he had finally dared to ask, Wu Fan isn't in Vancouver any more. She'd laughed herself stupid, too, but Wu Fan is used that reaction to his poker face.

Wu Fan's lived in Korea for a fifth of his life; Chanyeol was born here. It's normal that Chanyeol wants to hold hands or rub Wu Fan's back or sit with his head slumped down into the hollow between Wu Fan's head and his shoulders, tapping out the rhythm on Wu Fan's thigh as he raps along to Usher.

|  ("Has he kissed you yet? No? See, he knows you're Chinese," Amber says. "Don't worry about it, Kevin. Just enjoy it.")   
---|---  
  
So, it's normal. Wu Fan is allowed to like Chanyeol sidestepping into his personal space. He's allowed to drop an arm across Chanyeol's shoulders-- stiffly, because this all still feels _dangerous_ to Wu Fan, even if all that happens is that Chanyeol looks up at Wu Fan with a blinding wide grin that makes Wu Fan's lips twitch like a nervous tick.

|  ("I bet they dye my hair," Chanyeol says. "How d'you think I'd look with curls?")   
---|---  
  
Wu Fan shrugs. The line-up isn't certain yet -- there's talk of their ten becoming eleven or twelve -- so who knows what haircuts they'll have for debut, but Wu Fan pays attention. Language isn't just vocabulary and grammar, and that's not really why Chanyeol's asking. 

Chanyeol's current hairstyle is a little too long, six weeks since the last cut. It's still a little damp, but his hair slides smoothly through Wu Fan's fingers, dark and soft. Wu Fan dares to scratch Chanyeol's scalp with the edges of his fingernails, lightly, just in case that's too much. Chanyeol growls, low and pleased, and Wu Fan presses harder. Chanyeol arches his neck for a better angle; he squirms an arm between Wu Fan's back and the side of the bed they're leaning against, linking his arms around Wu Fan's waist, and something like warmth spreads through Wu Fan's insides. He's twenty but he thinks he may have finally figured out how to make a friend.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also comment at my [livejournal](http://threewalls.livejournal.com/356862.html?mode=reply#add_comment) or [dreamwidth](http://threewalls.dreamwidth.org/190383.html?mode=reply).


End file.
